


Time to Rest

by Inrainbowz



Series: In Any Other World - Malec AU Collection [14]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, End of the World, M/M, Sad Ending, Seriously this is depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 06:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12382557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inrainbowz/pseuds/Inrainbowz
Summary: 60. Post-Apocalyptic AUThere was nothing different about this place. There was nothing different about this day either. There wasn’t even anything noticeable about the way Alec sagged abruptly and tumbled to the floor, his legs suddenly giving out under him. Really, nothing was different. And yet, they knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that this was it.They wouldn’t go further.





	Time to Rest

**Author's Note:**

> Number 60 of that list.
> 
> I don't know why I was feeling melancholic today. I couldn't focus on anything I had to focus on, I was lethargic and slow, and the light outside was very strange, almost mystical. So I wrote a quiet end of the world. I didn't have it betaed cause I wanted to just write and post it.
> 
> BEWARE this is freaking depressing.

There was nothing different about this place. Nothing particular about this portion of the deserted road they had been following for days. It was the same wild plants peeking through the cracked asphalt, the same abandoned cars already rusting, which they didn't even take the time to search anymore since anything edible, anything of use was long spoiled and broken. The same dirty air charged with dust that made the sunlight dull and the night impenetrable. The same stillness.

There was nothing different about this day either. It had been the same hours of walking under the scorching sun, the same loneliness and silence that even they couldn’t break since they had long abandoned trying to make any form of understandable conversation through the filters of their masks. The same aimless but determined wandering, the same urge to keep moving forward in spite of everything, of the most basic common sense. The same day as the countless ones that had preceded and, in all logic, the countless ones that would come next.

There wasn’t even anything noticeable about the way Alec sagged abruptly and tumbled to the floor, his legs suddenly giving out under him. It was only the seventh times this day, actually less than average, the worst days being when he couldn’t walk at all. It was no secret to either of them that he was getting weaker and weaker but it wasn’t linear. Some days were bad, some were worse, and it didn’t change much the fact that they could do nothing but keep walking forward.

Really, nothing was different. Nothing was remarkable, nothing in this moment, in this wasted landscape, in this fading day, nothing set it apart from any others.

And yet, when Alec fell on the side of the road, when Magnus, with the force of habit, helped him move so that he could sit Alec between his legs and press their body together, there was indeed something different. They didn’t say anything, for a long moment they didn’t move at all, and there was nothing to see or hear but everything to feel.

And at that moment, without understanding why, without finding any clue around them as to where this certitude came from, they knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that this was it.

They wouldn’t go further. Not now, not tomorrow. Not ever.

The sun was setting – not that they could see it, with the dirt clogging their goggles and the mist flouting the sky, but the light was slowly fading away and the temperature was dropping. They should have been setting their camp, the tent, the fire, but they did nothing. They didn’t move.

There was no point.

Alec wasn’t particularly weaker than usual and he could have gotten up, probably. If it came to it Magnus could carry him, and he could take care of the camp and of their meager food on his own. But he didn’t.

None would have been able to explain it. They had been walking for… they didn’t know exactly, they didn’t keep count, but probably more than a hundred days. Since they had left the ruins of New York to try and reach the ruins of Boston and the rumors of a bunker still standing. A myth, of course, but as good a motivation as any, since there was nothing but myth and false hopes in the world these days. They had no reason to keep walking and they knew it. There was no hope, anywhere, nothing. But they had. Until now.

They had left New York a bigger group. Friends and family, siblings, colleagues, some strangers, the one they had picked up on their way out of the dead city. It was only the two of them now. All others had died, or tried their luck in another direction – and then died. It didn’t matter. In a world where you couldn’t move, you couldn’t communicate, you couldn’t know, what did it matter if people were dead or alive? For all they knew there were the last two people on Earth. They couldn’t care less.

Everything was still around them. No animals, no insects, the few dead rests of some plants and tree that no wind came to shake. Not even their usual campfire to try and battle the shadows, the darkness, the silence.

There was their shared breath, their face close together looking in the same direction, towards the darkening horizon beyond the desert that promised to be as empty and dead as where they were now. There was some warmth shared, even through the layers of their suits, their thick gloves, their winter coats, a burden during the day, not warm enough during the night. There were no emotions left. There had been had some point, sadness and fear, anger, hope and despair, determination, rage, sorrow. Love, hate, desire, disgust.

Nothing was left. It was too much effort, and strength had to be preserved at all cost if they wanted to keep going. Not that they really wanted to. They just did.

Until now.

"I want to see your face."

The voice came, muffled and broken, hoarse from disuse. Alec had barely whispered but Magnus had heard him clearly in the overwhelming silence of an empty world. How long since the last time? Talking was exhausting. They were already perpetually out of breath without adding it to the torment of their march, and they had nothing to say to each other anymore.

They also hadn’t seen each other’s face properly for almost a year.

They didn’t talk about why they had stopped and why they would never get up. It seemed established, a sort of inescapable fact that didn’t need to be voiced, just accepted, just as everything that had happened in the last few years. It’s not like there was anything they could do against it. It was over. Such was life.

Magnus nodded and started to work on the claps and knots of his masks. Alec’s arms were lying limply at his side, out of use. Magnus removed his mask and moved to Alec’s. Soon enough they were exposing their faces to the tainted air for the first time in ages.

Alec couldn’t sit properly anymore. Magnus lied him down on his back, his face resting on his laps so that they could look at each other, feast on the sight after all this time. The skins were pale and dry, the cheeks hollowed, the lips cracked and the eyes dull, obscured, but it wasn’t the cold round glasses of the goggles and the monstrous protuberances of the gas mask, and it was beautiful. Alec managed a smile. Magnus caressed his face.

They didn’t feel especially bad about giving up now. They didn’t feel much of anything really. They had walked, and now they had stopped. Alec couldn’t move anymore and Magnus wouldn’t go one step further than him. They had come this far together and now, it was finally time to rest. Not because they had reached some sort of goal, a date or a place or anything of the sort. There was no reason why, nothing worth mentioning but there hadn’t been any reason why they kept going either. They had made it as far as they could.

Firs touch in days. First sight of a human face. They removed their gloves to twine their fingers, to take joy in that simple contact of their rough, decaying skin. They even kissed, a press of shaped lips echoing to the distant memories of happier times, an eternity ago. Alec’s body was growing stiff, the cold was sipping into their bones, slowly putting them to sleep, numbing their senses.

It felt like a relief, it felt wonderful. They were together, sharing their breath, close enough that they couldn’t see the rest of the world, its depressing emptiness, its death. Things were fine now. It was all okay, it was over.

Letting go was easy. A few hours ago they were still fighting to put a foot in front of the other, but it already felt far away now.

There was nothing left to feel, except for relief.

“Goodnight,” Alec whispered with a smile as he had done a hundredth, a thousandth time in the past. Warm in a bed and cold on the road, happy and desperate, full of life and on the brink of death.

“Goodnight,” Magnus answered with a kiss as he always did, even when they fought, when they were running, when they were scared or sad, confused or lost. In sickness and health, in life and death, joy and grief, despite everything.

Bent in half, Magnus rested his forehead on Alec’s. As all the days before, they simply closed their eyes.

All was well now.

Time to rest.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know. Sorry.
> 
> [tumblr](http://inrainbowz.tumblr.com)


End file.
